The History of Life - Darwin and Lamarck

Agree:

• Earth is old
• Heritability of traits necessary
• Environment poses pressures

Lamarck (1809):

• Environment alters organism's behaviour -> change organ use -> change organ size
• No extinction
• Organisms evolve into each other

Darwin (1859):

• Environment alters survival and reproduction -> greater fecundity -> higher trait frequency
• Less fecund go extinct

• Parental characteristics passed on
• Mendel 1865 - some traits you either get or not
• Most traits you get some of it - nature vs nuture

Natural selection - organisms better adapted to environment survive and produce more offspring

Immense competition for survival = each adult only needs to produce 1 young to survive (many young die)

Hard to comprehend

Important because rare events happen - DNA's mutation rate very low

Reconciliation of Mendelian genetics and natural selection

Said micro and macro evolution accounted for in the same way